Monday 9 July 2007

HHC Top 100 rap singles 100-91

#95 - Dilated Peoples - The Platform

O.K. – We’ll kick off the Top 100 Rap singles in reverse order. There are, as it stands, 2 songs missing and I do apologise for this. Hopefully I’ll get them as we go along.

100. Big Daddy Kane - Wrath of Kane.mp3 – 1988 – from ‘It’s a Big Daddy Thing’(buy here)

99. Public Enemy - Dont Believe the Hype.mp3 – 1988 – from ‘It takes a Nation of Millions to Hold us Back’ (buy here)

My first taste of PE courtesy of ‘Best Hip Hop Anthems…Ever’. (Does anyone have this that they don’t want? It was my little brothers and I think one of my mates nicked it and now we can’t find a copy, it must be the best Hip Hop compilation…ever.)

98. Mos Def - Universal Magnetic.mp3 – 1997 – from ‘Soundbombing' (buy here)

Grrr. Really wish I hadn’t sold this 12”. I never appreciated it before but now I love it. A B-Boy throwback type classic.

97. De La Soul - The Magic Number.mp3 – 1989 – from ‘Three Feet High and Rising’ (buy here)

Has rap ever been more widely accepted than this track? Flippin’ ‘eck, even Julian Clary uses it on his weird BBC 7 radio show where he phones people up and helps them with problems such as their wives liking the Chippendales too much.

96. Just-Ice - Cold Gettin' Dumb.mp3 – 1987

95. Dilated Peoples - The Platform.mp3 – 2000 – from ‘The Platform’ (buy here)

I’m somewhat sceptical about the inclusion of this. I love Dilated, I have all their albums apart from that whack one that had Kanye Cheesemeister on it, but I think this got in here because of its success at the time. A personal favourite track and album though.

94. Public Enemy - Bring the Noise.mp3 – 1988 – from ‘It takes a Massive LP Title to Annoy Rap Writers’ (buy here)

Only to be played loud. Chuck D rages and Flav adds those usual mental ad libs.

93. Lords of the Underground - Cheif Rocka.mp3 – 1994 – from ‘Here Comes the Lords’ (buy here)

Head nodding Hip Hop with a dusty bass and echoey snare/clap that should get you dancing as well as excercising your neck. Good lyric: “…no it’s the shoes // The shoes? // It’s gotta be the shoes”.

92. Naughty By Nature - Hip Hop Hooray.mp3 – 1993 – from ‘Ninety Naughty Three’ (buy here)

Hip Hops anthem. Straight up, more nod inducing fare with THE most sing-a-long-able chorus ever, no exaggeration. NbN walk the fine line between mainstream and hardcore with precision.

91. Wu-Tang Clan - Triumph.mp3 – 1997 – from ‘Wu-Tang Forever’ (buy here)

One of the RZA’s tighter productions, a delicious mono bass tone resonates whilst strings punctuate the tension. The Clan take it in turn to drop lyrically supreme rhymes that serve to highlight how many weak wordsmiths there are around in this mixtape obsessed culture where anyone and their rims can be rap stars.

1 comment:

Tom said...

i really like this project. the hermit needs something new in terms of a feature, any ideas?